You Can't Make This Stuff Up!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Whoops, the Times does it again

Obama's paper of record, the New York Times is out with another advocacy piece for Obama. Once again the Times regurgitates unsupported allegations insinuating -- but not proving -- some sort of improper conduct by the McCain campaign.

The so-called newspaper charges that McCain-Palin 2008 campaign manager Rick Davis was paid by Freddie Mac until last month, contrary to previous reporting, as well as statements by the McCain campaign and by Mr. Davis himself.

Michael Goldfarb demolishes the anonymous smears published by the Times and supported by the old unidentified sources. One can reasonably assume that the unnamed sources are former Democrat operatives who ran Fannie Mac and Freddie Mac into failure:

In fact, the allegation is demonstrably false. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis separated from his consulting firm, Davis Manafort, in 2006. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis has seen no income from Davis Manafort since 2006. Zero. Mr. Davis has received no salary or compensation since 2006. Mr. Davis has received no profit or partner distributions from that firm on any basis -- weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual -- since 2006. Again, zero. Neither has Mr. Davis received any equity in the firm based on profits derived since his financial separation from Davis Manafort in 2006.

Further, and missing from the Times' reporting, Mr. Davis has never -- never -- been a lobbyist for either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Mr. Davis has not served as a registered lobbyist since 2005.

Though these facts are a matter of public record, the New York Times, in what can only be explained as a willful disregard of the truth, failed to research this story or present any semblance of a fair minded treatment of the facts closely at hand. The paper did manage to report one interesting but irrelevant fact: Mr. Davis did participate in a roundtable discussion on the political scene with...Paul Begala.

Goldfarb also points out that the Times has been extremely biased on this issue:

The New York Times has never published a single investigative piece, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Obama campaign chief strategist David Axelrod, his consulting and lobbying clients, and Senator Obama. Likewise, the New York Times never published an investigative report, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson and Senator Obama, who appointed Johnson head of his VP search committee, until the writing was on the wall and Johnson was under fire following reports from actual news organizations that he had received preferential loans from predatory mortgage lender Countrywide.

There is certainly plenty of reason not to trust the Times. Remember, the Times held a story for months, endorsed McCain to be the Republican Presidential nominee, and when he became the presumptive nominee the Times published a gutter story implying, with so little evidence -- none except two unnamed, disgruntled campaign workers -- that the Times' unprofessionalism became the story, the Senator engaged in some sort of impropriety.

TrackBack

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

You're missing two things - the McCain campaign hasn't said if Mr. Davis will receive money from his firm in the future, profiting in some way.
Or, if he still has an ownership stake, which gives him some profit in the future.

These are important things to note if you want to state he has received no money from his firm in the past 2 years.